1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, an imaging apparatus, an image display control method and a computer program. More particularly, the present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, an imaging apparatus, an image display control method and a computer program for displaying, in a list of thumbnail images, images selected from a great deal of moving image data picked up by a video camera, for example, and starting a moving image playing process at a position of a thumbnail image in response to a user designation of the thumbnail image from the thumbnail image list.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many of imaging apparatuses such as a digital camera and a digital video camera and image processing apparatuses such as a digital versatile disk (DVD) player have a function of displaying on a video display unit or a monitor screen a list of image data stored on a recording medium.
For example, an apparatus playing a moving image, such as an imaging apparatus or a DVD player, displays titles of moving images and chapters in a menu form and allows a user to select a play content from display data for playing. For example, an imaging apparatus picks up a moving image and captures, as one scene, moving image data in one cycle of photographing process, namely, from a start of a photographing operation to an end of the photographing operation and displays a reduced image (thumbnail image) of a representative image selected from each scene. The imaging apparatus displays a list of thumbnail images of a plurality of scenes (moving image data) recorded on a recording medium. One scene is also referred to a cut.
For example, Japanese Laid Open Patent Publication No. Hei 10-028250 discloses a technique of displaying a contracted image (thumbnail image) of a representative image selected from each scene.
Since a monitor displays the contracted image (thumbnail image) of image data forming each image data file stored on the recording medium, a user learns captured image data to some degree.
A single thumbnail image is displayed on a per scene basis in the list of thumbnail images displayed on a DVD player or a video camera in the related art. More specifically, the moving image data from the start of the photographing operation to the end of the photographing operation is handled as one scene. A representative image is selected from one scene. For example, a head image of one scene is selected and a thumbnail image of the selected image is then displayed.
A variety of moving image data (scenes) is recorded on the recording medium. The moving image data changes in time length from scene to scene, for example a short scene may be several seconds long and a long scene may be one hour long, for example. It may be sometimes difficult to determine what is photographed in a scene. When a list of thumbnail images is displayed, a still image of the head image of each scene is selected, and displayed in a contracted size. It may be often difficult for a user to learn the content of the image data from the head image. The displaying of the head image alone does not necessarily allow the user to learn what the moving image presents.
When a play scene is selected from the thumbnail image list, the selected scene is played from the beginning thereof. A portion of the scene the user is really interested in may typically appear in the middle of the scene rather than in the beginning of the scene. In such a case, the user starts playing, then performs a fast-forward operation and searches a data position of interest by continuously watching a play screen or a fast-forward screen.
Japanese Laid Open Patent Publication No. Hei 06-153157 discloses a technique that allows an image to be searched with index images extracted in time-series order being displayed. This technique requires that an index generation process be performed beforehand. Images are acquired at regular intervals from image data recorded on a recording medium in order to generate an index image. The generated index image is then recorded on the recording medium again. Generating the index image takes time. The generated index image recorded on the recording medium reduces a memory capacity available on the recording medium.